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Ah the 27 hour bus ride...It turned out to be 29 hours, largely due to the fact that we got a flat tyre. A 6 inch piece of something was pulled from deflated tyre. Additionally on this particular journey, I learnt that you should ALWAYS carry your passport in Argentina. An armed guard boarded and I casually thought they´d just check a couple of passports on route, but no...they checked everyone on the entire double decker bus. I had to explain in Spanish that I´d forgotten mine and it was in my bag downstairs. I didn´t get shot you´ll be pleased to know and we did arrive at Rio Gallegos later that night before getting on another bus for 4 hours to El Calafate - a type of fruit - near the Chilean border again. This town is the access point to Parque National de las Glaciers...Ice! Perito Moreno is one of the most actively calving glaciers on the planet. It was chucking it down on the day we went, but that only meant that it would be more active. The face of the glacier is 60 metres high, and we saw ice blocks 20 metres high crashing off into
Ice, ice...
That´s a boat (for scale of course) to the top right hand side of the water. It´s 300 m from the snout of the ice itself the sea below. Deafening is one way to describe it. We got a bo-at to get closer to the front, and saw one of the icebergs roll in the water. This happens as the sea water melts the underneath bit so that eventually it becomes lighter than the ice above and they swap position. Awesome times. Toes turned to ice though so eventually headed off.
That night we were a little bored so I cut Angela´s hair. I was under strict instructions not to ´poodleify´ her. I think I did a very grand effort considering that I was using a pair of nail scissors and a lot of effort. I´ve also managed to lose 2 pen knives on this trip so far. Thankfully I´d purchased my third that day, so they were utilised as well. I also invested in new shoes, because there were holes in my old ones, and i feared for frost bite in the tootsies with all the snow,
Anyhow, with much finger cramp on the go, the deed was done, and Angela was shawn like a sheep. Apparently I´d taken off too much (hee hee), and from certain angles I think she looks almost cockatoo-esque...It´s
The Welsh caves
Sunshine - a phenomenon unfamiliar to the Welsh not a poodle though is it?!
So yes, we left. The bus was at 4 am. It hurt. We stayed up for it. A gazzillion million hours later, 2 border crossings, 2 films, 2 beavers (they´re chuffing mamoth by the way) and 3 buses later, we were in Ushuaia...The most southerly city on the entire planet! It´s 3000km to Buenos Airies from here, and 1000km to the Antartic. We would try to get there, but there was no chance. Apparently it´s too icy. Wooses! It was not as cold as I expected actually. We were going to go dog sledging and re-create that old tunes advert where the eskimo (i know that´s not the pc term before you start) tries to get them going, but has a cold so can´t say "mush", just "bush". I´d bought some tic-tacs and they taste just like tunes, so I was really excited.
It rained and the snow was gone. Gutted to my very core! Went for a walk to see a glacier instead. Ironically because this was high ground, it was too snowy and icy to get to. In a moment of pure grown-up-ness and sensibility, we decided not to chance
it. So depressed with the lack of husky racing, we did another 2 border crossing, beavers etc. and reached Puerto Madryn. This is a lovely seaside town that was colonised by the Welsh and sell welsh cakes etc for afternoon tea. It´s also the entrance point for the peninsula that juts out from the coastline, where you can see 300 whales, pengiuns, sealions and other fantastic sea creatures, all from the comfort of dry land!
No whales, penguins or other exciting sea creatures for us due to our shoddy timing which is smack bang in between the penguins leaving and the whales arriving. Only armadillos and the sealions remain, which we´ve seen before. Instead, we explored the coastline and found the caves that the 1st Welsh settlers crashed into and used as shelter. Pretty historic huh?! They must have been really short Welsh people because the caves were mini - more like indentations than actual rocks. Couldn´t have provided much shelter either. Each to their own though. And that was all that P.Madryn had to offer. So we left for Buenos Airies...But that, my friends, is another story.
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Daphne
non-member comment
Good to hear
Hi Rhiannon. So good to hear of your travels. I seem to have mislaid your e.mail address or did I not have it?? Looks a bit cold to me. I think Scotland will do me for an adventure !!! Love, Daphne xx